The Material World
Quentin Cooper

Quentin Cooper : With no mouldy pork pie awards,yes,hello today we map the limitless frontier where science,history,research and theory meet public perception.Where discovery and invention collide in a cloud chamber of imagination,where the states of matter,antimatter and does it really matter all meet - science writing.

"Poets say science takes way from the beauty of the stars,mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is 'mere'. I too can see the stars on a desert night,but do I see less or more? [Ref: I Asimov "The Roving Mind Ch24 "Science and Beauty"]
The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination,stuck on this carousel,my little eye can catch one million year old light."
-Richard Feynmann

"The heavenly legions are a tangle of monsters,the universe blind violent and strange assails us.The sky is strewn with horrible dead suns,dead sediments of mangled atoms." 
-part of Primo Levy's poem "Black Star".

"Like a giant boulder perched at the edge of a towering cliff,the voids balance was so exquisite that only a whim was needed to produce a change,a change that created the universe." 
-Leon Ledermann

(Officiously) "General Relativity claims to be only a partial theory so what the singularity theorems really show is that there must have been a time in the early universe when the universe was so small that one could no longer ignore the small scale effects of the other great partial theory of the 20th century - Quantum Mechanics." 
-Stephen Hawking,from that book you never got round to reading [Speak for yourself -LB]

"In the beginning the universe was created.This has made a lot of people very angry,and has been widely regarded as a bad move."
-and that last one was Douglas Adams [I've read that too -LB]

Each of those snippets was a different attempt to put the nature and origins of the cosmos into a few words,but if I can just bring in Kierkegaard here,"if by observing we seek to understand the universe,but we only understand the universe subject to our observations",when does science writing enhance our understanding of science,and when does it distort it?

Works by scientists and science writers now regularly jostle with Nigella and Delia for a place in the non-fiction best sellers lists.But what makes a good science book,and why do we buy them? Is it that we've got an insatiable appetite for knowledge,a fear of being left behind by the latest advances or maybe a quasi-religious need to restore our sense of wonder in the world around us.
Well to discuss these and other chapter headings on science writing I'm joined by Robert Kunzig who,as you may have read in your paper this morning,has just been awarded the £10,000 Aventis general prize for science books 2001,for his full fathom five account of our attempts to understand the ocean depths,"Mapping the Deep". Also with us is one of this years Aventis judges,novelist Maggie Gee,along with Peter Talleck the former book editor of Nature,who is now with science publishers Veidenfeld and Nicholson,and Steven Rose Professor of Biology and Director of the Brain and Behaviour Research Group at the Open University,and also author of a number of science books,including 1993 Aventis winner "The Making of Memory" and "The Conscious Brain" which I should admit is one of the reasons I became a science journalist. Peter Talleck as a publisher,what in your view - it's a big question - makes a good science book?

Peter Talleck : Well I think there are all sorts of science books catering for all sorts of audiences,but I think you can say that there is a general pattern,and the books that tend to be most successful in my opinion are the ones that address big ideas,they're about the fundamental big questions in nature - where do we come from [See comefrom.html] - where does the world come from,and what makes us tick?

Quentin Cooper : It's quite interesting because each year on the Material World we tend to do a programme where we get an audience of schoolchildren to put questions to a panel of scientists,and it's almost like you're saying the kind of questions that come up in that sort of thing - the ones that are that the back of our brains or sometimes at the front of our brains that bug us - these are the ones that we really want to read the big book about?

Peter Talleck :  That's right,yeah,I think that I mean you could argue in a grandiose way that these books are fulfilling the role of religion,in this post religious age.

Quentin Cooper : Oh good I think we might get onto that later. Maggie Gee what criteria,apart from religious were you using an Aventis judge?

Maggie Gee : I think the writer has got to still have a sense of wonder. So perhaps it's quite relevant we're talking about children because they've got to have a sense that the universe is enormous and very exciting,which in a way is the same sort of reverence we're talking about - the same kind of excitement and ability to excite others that 19th century science books had with titles like "The World of Wonders". In a way I think a really good science book will be able to enthuse its audience in just that way.

Quentin Cooper : And what was it without expanding his ego so he's incapable of taking part in our discussion,what was it about Robert Kunzig's book that marked him out as a winner?

Maggie Gee :  I think he took a subject a lot of us hadn't thought about at all - the sea - which  covers after all 2/3 of the planet and suddenly turned it into something that was alive,where the seabed was constantly reinventing itself,where the surface of the sea sloped in different directions,where the currents were constantly in movement,and also to give us a wonderful version of the colours and the textures under the sea,and there was both a great factual content and this marvellous sense of excitement all the way through. I thought it was a really good book.

Quentin Cooper : Robert - nodding away there in agreement - we'll plunge into the depths of your book later,but it's interesting that you know Peter's already said that there are certain big things that we want to know about,that this is going to be the kind of books we want to buy. A lot of stuff in your book isn't necessarily exactly what we put on that list is it. In fact you go to the trouble at the start of the book saying look this isn't a book about sharks and whales and beaches and things like this?

Robert Kunzig : Yeah I suppose,I suppose the reason why I write a book like that is just that I'm constantly trying to fill in the horrible gaps in my education and there are so many of them that I sometimes get led down into little byways and stray away from some of the big questions. But sometimes I think some of the details of the subject can illuminate it - you can't spend your whole time talking about the wonder and majesty of the entire universe,sometimes you have to look at the individual jellyfish and maybe you find.....

Quentin Cooper :  You don't find yourself trying to connect everything in the universe? You think "Oh hang on, in order to explain this I need to explain that,in order to explain this I just....Hang on I'm just trying to write the entire universe".It's back to Douglas Adams,you're writing the Hitchiker's Guide!

Robert Kunzig : You do get lost,you do get lost sometimes,but then deadlines rise up to save you.

Quentin Cooper : That's very....Steven Rose you've written a lot about our brains,but d'you think you could...there's a market out there I don't know,for a brilliantly written book about our spleens,say,or are there certain subjects that have an inner mystery to them?

Steven Rose : I think probably brains have a greater inner mystery than spleens do,though spleens might be quite hazardous bits of one's body in their own right...

Quentin Cooper :  But you see what I am saying? I mean in all seriousness...?

Steven Rose : Oh absolutely,absolutely,well I mean that comes back to what all three of Robert and Maggie and Peter have said up till now,the thing I think I would add to it is that if one is trying to capture as a writer,or be captured as a reader,there's got to be a degree of passion, an intensity,one's really got to feel that the person who is at the other end of the keyboard or whatever it is trying to communicate with you - really wants you to know this and why. This has got to be important to them and even jellyfish can be made important to you if the person cares about them sufficiently. [That goes for tastes in music too -LB]

I've always felt when I'm writing anything that I really want people to know about this,and I don't just want them to know about if you like jellyfish or even the ocean,I want them to know, I want people to know how we know about it,that is the ways of finding things out as well and that seems to me to be tremendously important.

Quentin Cooper : So in a sort of strange angling reversal,the jellyfish might be the hook? That might be what lures them in?

Steven Rose :  The jellyfish might be the hook,but I would want to know,sort of how one knows about jellyfish,how one draws conclusions about it,that is ,what is it about doing science,being a scientist, drawing inferences, doing experiments and so on which makes it a particular sort of trade,and of course my sort of neuroscience is very different from an oceanographer's sort of science and there are many,many different sorts of sciences that there are around.

Robert Kunzig : Right I think that's the key,how is it that someone comes to spend his or her life studying jellyfish,which is kind of remarkable,and I think to me that's one of the big points of good science writing is to keep the focus on...scientists are very unusual people,they do very unusual things and so...while they are completely human and completely like the rest of us in some ways,they're also remarkable in how they choose to spend their time.

Quentin Cooper :  I have to say this is one of the great joys....

Steven Rose :   While on jellyfish I just want to say one little thing...jellyfish are actually extraordinarily beautiful! And that's another feature of as it were sort of.....

Robert Kunzig :  I think that's a big motive...

Steven Rose :  ...to study.Yes.

Quentin Cooper :  And they look good on the cover,Peter as well?

Peter Talleck : That's right yeah (giggles break out),I mean...I think...I think there are...there are certain subjects which are extremely exciting to scientists but make terrible books,terrible books in the sense that no one wants to buy them,I'm talking as a publisher. For example high temperature superconductivity,one of the great discoveries of recent decades,I think there were a couple of books on that at the time,really good books by really good science journalists,and to my knowledge those books bombed.
The same on Buckminster Fullerenes (see buckball.html & www.geocities.com/Omegaman_UK/c60.html) these new forms of carbon molecule that were discovered in the 80s. There are a couple...I think there were two books on that discovery,which failed to really make a mark.

Quentin Cooper : So you're implying that although there is science writing there is no science to science writing in that you can't work out in advance and say "Ah this theme or this author or this style of writing,we've got a best seller"?

Peter Talleck : That's right,yeah,I think there are certain ingredients that really help. I mean passion is one of them and that's why it think you get some of the most successful books are written by scientists. They've lived closest to the action,and they're intimately acquainted with it,and they can bring...they can convey their passion for the subject I think often much better than journalists.

Quentin Cooper :  Okay well I think we should move seamlessly on to actually talking about why one writes these books and you know it's interesting,Steven you come more from the sort of scientist who writes side and Robert you come from the writer who does science side. I'll start with you Robert what d'you think you gain and lose? Obviously an overview is presumably your advantage is it?

Robert Kunzig :  Well the first question -why I do it- I think it's what I said before,I'm basically just trying to educate myself. I start out with a ...I get hooked on a subject and then I set out to learn about it,and I just do what every journalist does,I go find the people who know and I start asking them questions,and it's the great privilege of my profession that I can get people to talk to me for hours about what they do,and so I just use that,and after that I take it home and I try and make something pretty out of it.

Quentin Cooper :  But if that really is your approach though,isn't there a danger that by the end of having talked to those people,your level of expertise has increased to such a level that if you then wrote at that level,you would lose a lot of readers...

Robert Kunzig :  Well it hasn't happened yet!

[Why have they been polled? How does Robert know? Roger Penrose in his books says that he diminishes the amount of maths so as not to alienate readers - and yet it proves frustrating for those who'd rather see what is actually behind the workings - the amount of maths involved anyway is probably sufficient to alienate those who would be alienated - the reason possibly for superconductivity and C60 books bombing  - is because the public fail to see what such things have to do with their own lives - both subjects are very important and the books should not have bombed - I think it is more to do with how the subjects are perceived as relevant as opposed to the technical level involved in the writing -LB]

Quentin Cooper :   Right,so you have to stay professionally naive?

Robert Kunzig :  And that's...I don't generally find that too difficult! (Laughter)

Quentin Cooper :  But is there an advantage as well as somebody who's not allied to one particular field,that you can have an overview?

Robert Kunzig :  I think so,yes,I think you can..certainly in the case of the ocean,for instance,which is a field in name only.It's really ten different fields,each with its own class of specialists, none of whom are terribly eager to ...you know,the bi..the people who study plankton are not the same people who study the physics of ocean currents. In fact they're completely different worlds and so it...to undertake such a project was inherently a journalistic thing,so why not a journalist? There are other books I think that can only be written - I think Peter was saying - a first person account,which has to be a scientist. I think they're just two different kinds of things and both are valuable. The big trend it seems to me is that for a while it was only scientists who were doing it,in the past few decades there has been possibly just because the amount of science to write about has been exploding so ferociously.There's been this rise of a new sort of intellectual traveller who goes out and brings in reports from the frontier,and that's people like me,and I think that's helped the scientists themselves,I don't know whether you would agree with that Steven,but I  think that in a way the journalistic attention to narrative maybe has inspired some scientists as well in their writing.

Steven Rose : Well I'm sure that it has,and as it were,sort of what we'll probably come on to discuss as it were the popular interest in this area has certainly inspired scientists to write as well. But I suppose in my case,it's partly a sort of apologia a pro vita (??) that is I want to justify why I am doing particular sorts of things. The feeling I want people to know about what it is,a feeling that science is too important to be left to the scientists. You have to make it part of the public communication area,and when people turn round and say "well "'The Conscious Brain' is why I became a scientist or did a science degree" or as so many people have said,the first book I ever wrote was a little chem..biochemistry book,this turned me on to biochemistry,I don't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing they were turned on,but you have a feeling that you have done something that was worthwhile.

[I'm sure turning people is on is worthwhile - LB]

But the other thing which is increasingly the case,and I think is a different arena about this,and that is within the terrain of the sciences themselves there are huge battles and contradictions,you saw them in some of the quotes we had at the very beginning. In my area of the brain sciences,behaviour,genetics,evolutionary psychology,behaviour genetics and so on,there are huge battles of ideas being fought out,and these are now being fought out at a level of public debate through the books. There's a classical battle of the books going on,and I'm engaged in it,as are many other people. So I want my side to as it were,sort of have a voice in that.

Quentin Cooper : I mean,but it's an interesting point,because for a lot of us who are reading these books,we may not even be aware of these agendas. As far as we are concerned we take the science,so we maybe take the agenda with it,and are not able to entirely decipher material.

Steven Rose : That's clearly the case in the way a lot of the books are written. I mean to take my own personal experience,I really reject that both as a teacher and as a writer,and that is I feel that the audience,the readership has a right to know where you're coming from,where you stand,and to be clear that this is a viewpoint within a contested arena. Of course there are other writers who don't take that,who just take their own contested viewpoint as the standpoint,without bothering to spell out the rest as well.

Quentin Cooper : And maybe even some writers who are unaware they have a standpoint and they think they are speaking absolute truth?

Steven Rose :  That's also true,I mean there remains as it were a distressing tendency for people in my sort of trade to believe they have a direct hotline to God.

Maggie Gee :  But in a way I think one of the great strengths of some science writing today is that it is bringing the debate to a wider public,that's exactly what's going on,that there are all sorts of contentious areas where if popular science books weren't written,and if debates weren't explained,actually we wouldn't know what was going on,and in a sense the book that you edited together with Hilary Rose last year was doing that,it was bringing into a more public arena the arguments about evolutionary psychology [See iotm.html doc78]. So I think this is something very important that science books can do actually,and they can be very entertaining,sometime when they're doing that.

Quentin Cooper : And actually we can get I think as readers as hooked on these debates as we do on the actual facts...

Maggie Gee :  Yes.

Quentin Cooper :  ..because we see something,if you like,evolving - if that's not a dangerous term to use,before our very eyes.

Steven Rose :  Well thanks for the (indistinct) which was nice,but I think Robert's point of view and I'm not sure where Peter is in this,is slightly different,and that is that as a science writer you are bringing together a whole body of views from different sorts of areas,without necessarily taking a viewpoint yourself,and that's a different sort of style isn't it?

Robert Kunzig : Well there,it's sort of two different kinds of books really...

Steven Rose : Yeah.

Robert Kunzig :  ...I mean there are books that are inherently are making an argument and there are books that basically like mine,that are just setting out to inform. I mean maybe there's a certain naivete in that kind of approach,but it also depends on the subjects you choose to focus on.

Peter Talleck :  And there are some topics like consciousness which was a dirty word in the scientific community probably,although Steven probably has a more (indistinct) view.

Quentin Cooper :  He's nodding.

Peter Talleck :  Where the debates are played out primarily in popular science,and people like Steve Pinker and Daniel Dennet,Antonio Demasio,coming from all different areas, psychology,neuroscience...

Quentin Cooper :  So you actually get rebuttal books appearing in the best seller chart?

Peter Talleck :  That's right,yeah,these books are not just talking to the so called general reader,they're ..these people are using these books to address their colleagues as well I think.

[It's probably the case since Penrose's arguments in ENM received comments to questions in "Shadows of the Mind" and then in "The large, the small..." views from other professional colleagues were put and answered -LB]

Steven Rose : Oh yes, "Alas poor darling" was like that,but I was noting that in response to Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works" Jerry Fodor (??) wrote a book which was simply called "The Mind doesn't Work that way"! (Laughter)

Quentin Cooper :  But is there also a reaction here Peter between this increase in popular science and these large prizes that are available for science writing and the kind of science books that are being written now? Are people becoming more ambitious or trying to figure out...? The same way as if you like,in film making,you know there's an acknowledged difference sometimes between great films and Oscar winning films?

Peter Talleck :  Are you asking me what makes a really big science book?

Quentin Cooper :  No. I'm actually asking you whether or not there has been a change in some kinds of science writing because of the increase in science popularity and the kind of prizes that are around. Are people trying to write specifically to go for the prizes? So  a slightly different motivation to the ones we've heard about from Robert and Steven?

Peter Talleck :  I think there's a lot of hype in the business. People always talk about the 8 million copies that Stephen Hawking sold of "The Brief History of Time" and I think publishers are desperate to try and repeat that success but there is no magic formula. So that's a big driving force and there's a whole business and industry behind that which keeps it going. So it's become a sexy, trendy area.

Maggie Gee :   But as a reader I like to kid myself that you can tell the difference between the books that are written with real passion,and the books that are market generated,and in a way,certainly Robert Kunzig's book,but also Steve Gran's book "Creation" you could tell that this was a book about artificial life and it's written in a very imaginative philosophical way. So  he actually makes us look again at what life is [See langton.html ; Ref:Video C1: Horizon: Artificial Life],and you can tell very well that he's writing it from passion,from a sense of exploration,and there's no way that that book,I think was an idea that came from the publisher to him. I'm quite sure that he was writing from an internal....and internal imperative that I think was quite similar to yours.

Steven Rose : Peter was his publisher weren't you?

Peter Talleck : That's right yes. (Laughter)

Maggie Gee :  And am I correct in that...?

Quentin Cooper :  Just check this...can we maybe use that as an example? Because I'm intrigued by what the process is,by...how a science book gets written.
I mean obviously I can imagine that if Steven comes to you,and says "Look..." - I'm assuming there's not a clash of publishers here,which there probably is - but comes to you and says "Look I want to do a book about this",as long as it's within an area that you associate with him,that's fine. If he suddenly says "I want to do a piece...a book about marble",then you go "Ohhh I'm not sure that's your audience",and maybe even if he says he wants to do a book about animal experimentation,you go "Well,maybe that is your audience,but you may get into a lot of trouble with that." So,take us through.....

Peter Talleck : I think it's very..I mean picking up from what Maggie said, I think it's very important that people really want to write their book. I mean there are better things to do than write a book [What an odd thing for a publisher to say - LB],and you know,so the money..
(Maggie interrupts)....probably,but so I think the passion's got to be there right from the start,and some burning desire to tell a story..

Quentin Cooper :   But you say that,but we had someone on the programme recently a chap called Dr Martin Brooks who wrote a very good book..

Peter Talleck : Also one of my authors!

Quentin Cooper :  ...well according to Martin,he says it's a great book and he really enjoyed doing it,but it wasn't his idea,the publishers came to him,and said "Why don't you write a book about flies?".

Peter Talleck :  That's right,and I think that's why,you know,I thought why not tell the story of 20th century biology through the fruit fly - the research on the fruit fly - and I think it's exactly a case where a journalists really comes into their own....

[I can't resist - I think it's better to come into someone else's! -LB]

it's an organism that embraces so many different fields,you really need the journalists eye to cover it all. [You mean - he/she needs a compound eye? 

Quentin Cooper : Yes but it does,sort of,forgive the pun - fly in the face of what you were saying immediately beforehand?

Peter Talleck :  That's right,yeah,that's right,I mean I...books happen in all sorts of ways, sometimes the publisher will have an idea and then try and find an author for it,other times an author will come...a very good author but lacking that idea,that inspiration,and sometimes you get the manuscript arriving out of the blue on your desk.

Quentin Cooper : And you think "Aha that'll be it".

Peter Talleck :  That's it.

Quentin Cooper : And presumably as you said before,you sometimes get these things and think this will be a best seller and you're wrong?

Peter Talleck :  That's right,yeah,you can never tell.

Quentin Cooper : Okay,well we've talked so far about the ..what makes a good science book,and we've talked about how to write a science book,but I think we should get on to why we buy science books. I mean Maggie here, I think you're probably the lead consumer here. You've probably read more science books than most of the rest of us,without actually having written one yourself. What makes you pick up a particular book?

Maggie Gee :   I think it's just I feel we're here for a very short while on this planet and I want to understand as much as I can about life here,about human life,about all the different kinds of life around us,and basically if you don't look at science writing I don't think you can do that.
I mean I'm a novelist and,we're supposed to be very interested in individuals, I am interested in individuals,but in my fiction I also want to write about humans as specious creatures and really you can't do that without looking at science writing,and we're actually very lucky that we're in a time where there's a lot of very good science writing again.

Quentin Cooper : But it's interesting you are a novelist,isn't there room for a bit more room for science in fiction as opposed to science fiction.

Maggie Gee :   Well actually there is some in mine...

Quentin Cooper : Yes very...

Maggie Gee :   I've been doing that for quite a long while. I don't know,I don't think you can say to novelists,"Come on you're not doing it properly if you haven't got science in it". Either you are interested in it or you're not.

Quentin Cooper :  Oh I'm not criticising any individual novelist,I'm just wondering there just seems to be to me there isn't that much of it around out there. There is is this science fiction which goes off and flies into fantasy and there's all sorts of things,obviously some is terribly properly science-based and some of it's barely distinguishable from fantasy,but there is very little kind of "I'm going to write a book that's based around..." I don't know deep sea oceanographers",or whatever it might be.

Maggie Gee :   Well Virginia Wolf said a very long time ago that if only a woman novelist could write a novel in which there was a woman scientist,this would be a great move forward and I don't know that there's still that many novels about women scientists,but I think you'll find quite a lot of major novelists are using science now. It doesn't always have good results, sometimes it looks tacked on. So you've got to do it from passion. I think you've got to do it from a sense that the kind of patterning,the kind of way of understanding life that happens in science is not too alien from the kind of patterning in novels and in the visual arts and I happen to believe that. There are two schools of thought about this,but I think we're all coming at it in a way from a desire to understand more to make big patterns from small individuals.

[I agree - and mathematicians are the masters of pattern - no matter how small the individual -LB]

Quentin Cooper :   D'you think it's actually a conscious choice for some people,"I will read a science book or I will read a non science book" or is it just "That looks interesting"?

Maggie Gee :   I don't know how conscious choices are about books - it's what's in the shop or ...

Quentin Cooper :  But do you think we divide it? I mean do we go in,you know,there are people who will wander into the science section and there are people who won't. I mean I personally,I just see what's out there and think "Oooh that looks interesting,I'll read that" - and it might be a historical novel, it might be,you know it might be Simon Sharma,it might be a work of science.

Maggie Gee :   I know I would much rather read a bad science book than a bad novel. Because if you read a bad novel you get nothing from it,if you read a bad science book you learn something.

[That's not quite true - you can read a bad science book and learn something badly - which is worse than learning nothing - because a faulty idea has been communicated - one of these issues is taken up by Alistair B Fraser : http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/BadScience.html ]

Peter Talleck :  I do think science books - good popular science books have to be well written,you know,people are having to put quite a lot of effort into reading some of these books,they're quite meaty things,and you know the author's got a duty I think to entertain and thrill the reader.

Steven Rose : But there is a  "why now?" thing,and I think that the last decades have changed the sorts of non fiction books that people read,and I'm not sure whether Maggie or Peter would agree with this,but whereas in a sense,the big questions that people wanted to see answered back in the 60s and the 70s might have been...you might have approached by reading politics or sociology or economics,when it's not seen that these provide solutions
or answers to the world problems,Zeitgeist ("Time Ghost" -LB) has changed,science is now providing really as you were saying right up at the head of the programme,an alternative to religion and an alternative to politics,as a way of understanding and trying to change the world,and that's something that has happened over the course of the last two decades,and it's produced at least in part,this boom in science publishing. Whether something's going to replace as it were,the enthusiasm for natural science,whether we get back to a world of politics and social sciences again,I just don't know.

Quentin Cooper :  But I wonder then if we are trying to get these quasi-religious impulses satisfied,are we...what do we learn from our science books? Do we learn humility or do we learn arrogance that we understand the universe? Maggie Gee,cruel question, I know.

Maggie Gee : I think some of the writers are arrogant,it doesn't always...that's not always an attractive feature. I think we.. you know,a good science book should perhaps give you a bit more sense of humility,because you'll understand how much you don't understand,how much there is out there,and how much science there is still to do.
I mean I really dislike books called things like "The End of Science" or you know "No More Further",because of course there's always more.The more you know,the more you have to know.

[A point made by Robert Pirsig in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - but if we impress upon ourselves how much we don't know - we become mystical and play up to ignorance - the fact is we know a hell of a lot in a short space of time - no matter how much there is still to find out -LB]

Quentin Cooper :  Robert,what do you think people will take away from your book,and what do you hope they will take away from your book?

Robert Kunzig : Oh I hope it will just be a sort of an eye-opener to them really. I mean it's what Maggie Gee was saying,that..

Quentin Cooper :  But once we've had our eyes opened,let's say we've read your book and it's all there,and for some reason we've got remarkably good memory retention,what do we do with this knowledge?

[Here it comes -"what is knowledge for?" - well what is art for - it's own sake? What use is a new born baby? -LB]

Do we gasp in awe the next time we stand on a sea front?

Robert Kunzig :  (Laughs) Maybe you're inspired to keep it up and to look for more in strange places [Just like a photographer seeing things from strange angles -LB] that you wouldn't have looked at otherwise,I guess.Maybe when you're ...maybe you'll pay a little bit more attention when someone starts talking about climate change,and maybe you'll have a certain understanding of what's going on,and what the issues are,what's at stake.

Steven Rose : You don't say you might want them to be an oceanographer or some other sort of marine scientist?

Robert Kunzig : Actually,that would - if it made my little girl become an oceanographer,that would be wonderful.

Quentin Cooper :  Peter d'you actually know much about the people who buy science books,are they....is there are defined demographic?

Peter Talleck : I don't....not really, I mean I see the readership as being a broad church.
I think there are people who've never read a popular science book before,but suddenly have an urge to find out about a particular area,and they have short brief accessible accounts to cater for those kind of people. I think there are also people,who maybe studied science at school/university - now work in the city,but like to keep up to speed,the kind of New Scientist readers and Economist readers. They may even actually have quite a good background in knowledge,you know readers can be very critical.

Quentin Cooper : And we've also talked from the point of view of the writer whether it makes a difference whether it's written by a writer about science,or a scientist who is writing,does it make a difference to the reader? I'm thinking for instance,if Stephen Hawking and I wrote the same book,and he keeps turning up on the same programme,I think I'd be more inclined to buy if it had Stephen Hawking's name on it than I would mine.

Peter Talleck :  Yeah,that's right,I think as I said,you know the scientist that has been at the bench for twenty years working on fruit flies,has,you know,a lot of credibility,and it gives him more authority,although as Steven pointed out,you may have to watch out exactly where they are coming from.

Steven Rose : There is a problem about that,and that is ,if you are a scientist who writes then the tendency - I mean the question immediately after I got my equivalent to what Robert's just got sort of back 8 years ago - was "What is the next book you're going to write?" . One's on a treadmill of writing and to actually....there's a tension therefore between staying being a lab scientist and becoming as it were,a professional science writer,and as most of us don't know much outside our own area,you then tend to write the same book again and again.

[Shadows of the Mind basically covers the same territory as ENM - LB]

Quentin Cooper :  But isn't it a great joy that your books always need updating presumably,I mean science is never done.

Steven Rose :  Well science is never done,but publishers may not want to have a new edition of an old book!

Quentin Cooper : And Peter finally,does it help if your science book as a happy or at least an upbeat ending? I mean do we want to read a sort of about...kind of vaguely Utopian thread rather than "We are wrecking the planet"?

[I think "And then we will know the mind of God" - is both up and down beat - I know what he means - but there is no God to have a mind - and even if there was - "mind" would not apply - since "mind" is a faculty of brains - which are physical - LB]

Peter Talleck :  I think this goes back to what Maggie said,people basically I think want to be inspired. They want some sense of wonder when they're reading these things and to come away thinking how wonderful the world is.

Robert Kunzig : I end my book with the incineration of Earth,so I hope that doesn't er...!! (Laughter)

Quentin Cooper :  I think there...unfortunately there is where we must end with the incineration of this topic,but I have to say of course the big unanswered question we've left is when you get programmes on the radio devoted to science books - but I've never seen so much as one international best selling book about science radio programmes! Now why do you think that is?
Well thanks and congratulations to 2001 Aventis Prize Winner Robert Kunzig,and thanks also to Maggie Gee,Steven Rose and Peter Talleck.If you'd like to find out more about this or hear the entire programme again,or give us your thoughts about science books,then jot down this address www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 that's the Radio4 website and once there you'll find Material World nestled amongst the list of programmes.
Next week we get back to the minutiae of science,and take a whale's eye view of food poisoning. Apparently certain nasty strains of e-coli bacteria take over our gut by harpooning themselves into the wall of our intestines. Now scientists are working on new drugs that it's hoped,will act as chemical Rainbow Warriors,and prevent the pathogens harpoons from finding their targets.